Wednesday, August 24, 2016

An alternative view, ecologically

NPR has published something of a radical proposal from a philosopher (note: not a climatologist) who argues that we ought to be putting birth taxes and the like on people who decide to procreate. (H/t Michelle Malkin) Now while I understand the motivation, I think there is a lot we can do besides something so draconian, and something that....will imperil the lives of the aged. After all, if there are no kids around (cue the "Vulgarians" from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), good luck getting someone to feed us applesauce and Ensure, and clean our Garfield bedpans, no?

To wit, the philosopher claims that the "carbon impact" of a baby is 9441 tons of carbon dioxide, about 5.7 times the actual carbon emissions of an individual in 80 years of life, or about six tons of carbon being burned on behalf of every American man, woman, and child each year of their life.

While this is borne out by EIA numbers for coal, oil, and natural gas production, a look at my own family's consumption says we're simply not doing our share to destroy the earth. Although we drive an evil SUV and an evil pickup, we don't drive that many miles, keep our house cooler than average, use little air conditioning, and the like.

Along with plants sequestering carbon through a process called "photosynthesis", it seems that there's a lot that can be done to mitigate carbon emissions (if indeed they are a problem) without government coercion. And so we have to ask the question; is this about the environment, or expanding the government--which incidentally is (Lake Baikal, Warsaw Pact Superfund zones, etc..) the worst environmental offender of all?